couples | InCity Times

By Joseph Cancelmo

Who makes the rules? Society says we should do this or that – you grow up, go to school, meet someone you love, date and eventually get married, or move on and repeat the process till you find the “right person.” Mothers have guided daughters, and father their sons. You learn from your mistakes and move on, hoping for the best.

Then came the media and Internet where nothing is sacred, and you see all the shows on Oprah. Back in the day it was the Donahue show … let’s not talk about the Jerry Springer Show. Most recently, the Supreme Court.

You’re living your life like you are supposed to and your children are doing the same, but one day your adult child comes home and has to tell you, or you figured it out, that they prefer same-sex relationships, and not the “conventional Christian” “Boy Girl” kind. So what do you do? There are two options: A. the original Garden of Eden Special – leave in shame and figure it out on your own, or B. the “conventional Christian” option and forgive and move on. Most families pick B.

This being said, you figure out a plan and you live your life the way you want, the way the others have for centuries, only now there is Facebook et al. There are those “Others” who gape and stare and point foul like a bad horror movie of nonconformists and it goes all the way to the Supreme Court and builds like a tsunami and the water never crashes. These very people, gay couples, important tax payers, sometimes known as D.I.N.K.S (Double Income No Kids) watch, listen and read as what appeared to be the Supreme Court regretting taking the case.

In reality, most gay couples who want to marry are not out to destroy the sanctity of marriage; it’s recognition, respecting the values they were taught by loving parents. Why, following the conventional society rules, should they be denied what their parents and other siblings have? Gay people do not choose to be gay; they merely choose to live the truth of who they are, as they were taught by their parents. Since no same sex couple can procreate, only heterosexuals create homosexual offspring. Age old question: “Mommy, who did Cain and Able sleep with to have Babies?”

Nine states allow the marriage – the rest of the country turns its heads. Unlike the molesting priests, there is no pay out to be had. Everyone has a gay member in their family, and it is not a feel-bad situation for them. Many “straights” have danced and celebrated these unions, but then it’s back home and hush up, or share the wonderful day with your friends and coworkers.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito also seemed disinclined to move too fast on gay marriage, stressing that it’s a new concept that should be tested for its impact on society. “Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new,” he said to U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. “But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?”

Edie Windsor is 83 years old and had 42 happy years with the love of her life Thia. The two were married. But when she died in 2009, Edie got hit with almost $400,000 in federal estate taxes – a penalty she would not have had to pay, if she was married to a man.

According to Wikipedia, In 1869 the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave the vote to black men, split the movement. Campaigners such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton refused to endorse the amendment, as it did not give the vote to women. Others, such as Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, argued that if black men were enfranchised, it would help women achieve their goal. The conflict caused two organizations to emerge, the National Woman Suffrage Association, which campaigned for women’s suffrage at a federal level as well as for married women to be given property rights, and the American Woman Suffrage Association, which aimed to secure women’s suffrage through state legislation. The groups merged and after 1900 made a new argument to the effect that women’s alleged superior characteristics, especially purity, immunity from corruption and concern with children and local issues, made their votes essential to promoting the reforms of the Progressive Era. Women’s contributions to American participation in the First World War (1917–18) gave the impetus for final victory. Finally, culminating in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Bottom line – no social media and hand-written books took the US Government 51 years to let women vote. Were they wrong to do that? Never mind basic Civil Rights, that’s the next story …

(editor’s note: We ran these pieces a few years ago. Seems like Mayor-elect Joe Petty missed them – and is going to enable Rushford. Shame on Petty. This is not the way things should go down. No, Joe P., the solution – a done deal, no doubt – will not be “amendable” to all parties! – R. Tirella)

By Rosalie Tirella

Let’s see: the city is cash strapped, the state is cash strapped (until the new MA state sales tax kicks in!) and the country is searching for the bootstraps it needs to pull itself out of this financial hell hole. What better time for Worcester City Clerk David Rushford to add as much as $95,000 to his base salary of $131,000!

Meet David Rushford – Worcester’s Marrying Man!

This Sunday we learned that Rushford, who is already closing the Worcester City Clerk’s office a couple of hours earlier than 5 p.m (creating banking hours for himself and his staff while still collecting the same pay check) has been making some serious side money ON CITY TIME and CITY PROPERTY marrying people. He won’t say how much he charges, but thanks to yet another whacky Massachusetts law, Rushford, or any city/town clerk in Massachusetts can charge $50 – $95 every time he/she officially marries a couple.

You would think that the fee would go to the city or town. After all, the momentous event is happening in a city or town hall. It is being performed by a city/town clerk who is working at his city/town job in a city/town hall (thus collecting his/her city/town pay check). You would think with all the whining David Rushford has done about losing a few city clerks and not being able to perform all his work with the staff he’s got, that he would be tickled pink if marrying people meant more moeny for the City of Worcester. Maybe then City Manager Mike O’Brien could rehire some of Rushford’s city clerks he laid off earlier.

Nope. The dough goes to the city/town clerk doing the marrying.

Last year, Rushford married 950 couples. Do the math: 950 x $100 = $95,000!

WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THIS STATE?! HOW NUTTY CAN WE GO? WE (City of Worcester) LAY OFF CITY NURSES AND TEACHERS AND PARKS PEOPLE AND STILL ALLOW RUSHFORD TO MAKE AS MUCH AS $95,000. WHY DON’T THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS IN WORCESTER GET RIGHTEOUSLY PISSED AND WORK TO HAVE THIS ARCANE STATE LAW CHANGED SO THAT THE MONEY GOES TO THE CITY OF WORCESTER? Not our city clerk who lives in an amazingly huge mansion on Mass Ave – for being little more than a glorified secretary.

Insane!

Here’s hoping city councilors do something productive during their two summer meetings. Let’s have them petition the state to rescind the law or at least pass some local ordinance that allows the City of Worcester to collect – and KEEP – the fee.

$95,000 could go to Worcester’s parks, city pools – city kids. It could go towards public health, AIDS awareness.

It amazes me to see how Blow Mag and many city pols just seem to enable/excuse this bad behavior. Why? Because they know Rushford. Because they are all in the same boys club, standing in the same swill.

Pathetic.

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City Clerk David Rushford, part II

By Rosalie Tirella

This Sunday Worcester City Clerk David Rushford whined about his reputation being sullied via the news rags. Bull shit! Rushford has brought this tsunami on himself.

And let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: OK, David, you only charge $50 per marriage. Let’s do the math. $50 x 950 marriages (the number of couples you married last year) = $47,500.

$47,500!

That’s what you pocketed last year, if we go with the conservative number.

Now let’s take you pal Jordan Levy’s statement – that you usually perform half that number of marriages, that last year was atypical. Half of 950 marriages is 475. Let’s do the math with 475 marriages and the $50 fee:

475 x $50 = $23,750.

Why should the taxpayers of Worcester pay you a nice little sum of $23,750 on top of your base salary of $131,000?

The money belongs to the City of Worcester. That $23,750 could go towards the hiring of a city youth worker – someone who can work with city gang members, some young kid fresh out of college who needs a job, needs a break. That’s the trouble with Worcester – the same people keep giving themselves and their relatives/pals break after break.

Let’s not allow City Clerk David Rushford to be yet another Worcester hog at the municipal trough.

P.S. Rushford lives on Regent Street – the street before Mass Ave.